it we started up the Nile. For a month or more all went well; also to
my delight my wife seemed now and again to show signs of returning
intelligence. Thus she took some interest in the sculptures on the walls
of the temples, about which she had been very fond of reading when in
health. I remember that only a few days before the--the catastrophe,
she pointed out one of them to me, it was of Isis and the infant Horus,
saying, 'Look, George, the holy Mother and the holy Child,' and then
bowed to it reverently as she might have done to an altar. At length
after passing the First Cataract and the Island of Philæ we came to
the temple of Abu Simbel, opposite to which our boat was moored. On the
following morning we explored the temple at daybreak and saw the sun
strike upon the four statues which sit at its farther end, spending
the rest of that day studying the colossal figures of Rameses that are
carved upon its face and watching some cavalcades of Arabs mounted upon
camels travelling along the banks of the Nile.

"My wife was unusually quiet that afternoon. For hour after hour she sat
still upon the deck, gazing first at the mouth of the rock-hewn temple
and the mighty figures which guard it and then at the surrounding
desert. Only once did I hear her speak and then she said, 'Beautiful,
beautiful! Now I am at home.' We dined and as there was no moon, went
to bed rather early after listening to the Sudanese singers as they sang
one of their weird chanties.

"My wife and her mother slept together in the state cabin of the
dahabeeyah, which was at the stern of the boat. My cabin, a small one,
was on one side of this, and that of the trained nurse on the other. The
crew and the guard were forward of the saloon. A gangway was fixed from
the side to the shore and over it a sentry stood, or was supposed to
stand. During the night a Khamsin wind began to blow, though lightly as